


How to Say Goodbye

by impolitecanadian



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impolitecanadian/pseuds/impolitecanadian
Summary: Bitty works through how to say goodbye to the place he has called home for four years
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	How to Say Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, it's me, a sappy Class of 2020 graduate who isn't getting a graduation and just has a lot of feelings to work through about leaving my campus the way i am, so i projected them all onto bitty as the comic ends today
> 
> Thank you to Ngozi for creating the most wonderful, beautiful, and incredible story. I am so grateful. How do I say goodbye to your world and your characters? Because I dont know how to.

Bitty gently ran his left hand over the surface of the oven in the Haus kitchen, his ring catching the sunlight streaming through the window. He smiled softly to himself, with the thought of Jack, his newly minted fiancé, and everything that had occurred here. The oven, a gift from Jack when he still believed that he would never stand a chance, felt like a talisman, tying himself to the room that he’d spent more time in then his bedroom for the past four years. He’d been so blind to so many things, and so, so afraid when he’d first stumbled through that front door carrying a blissfully innocent pecan pie. And he’d changed so much within these walls.

Within this campus. He didn’t know how to say goodbye. The greens that he’d lounged on with his teammates weren’t going anywhere, but he would never return to them with a heavy history book, fooling himself into thinking he was going to finish a reading in the sunshine. The library he’d been kicked out of more than once for being too loud and too rowdy in was never going to be home to a late night study session before a midterm. He felt hollow looking around at his kitchen. He was leaving most of the cookware behind as he’d been reminded by Jack that he didn’t particularly need doubles of everything in Providence, and the Frogs were going to need to eat off something next year. But still, the room felt so… empty. He felt empty.

No, empty wasn’t the right word. How could he feel so? He’d been given so much by this school, by this campus, by this _team._ He’d found friendship, and acceptance, and despite his best efforts at procrastinating, he’d even learned a thing or two. He’d also found Jack. Jack, who loved him with the same ferocity he played every shift of hockey with. Who held him as he figured out who he wanted to be. 

His heart was aching, but it wasn’t sadness. It was grief, maybe. Grief for the life he was leaving behind, but it was also such deep reverence for what this place had made him. He had changed here. Blossomed under the nourishment of Samwell’s community. He was so far removed from his unsure freshman self, but he could feel the echoes of him within these walls.

He wanted to turn to that scared boy, who was barely eighteen, and tell him: “Just you wait – just you wait to see what this place will do for you. For us. It won’t be easy, but it will be so, so worth it.”

Bitty barely even registered that he was crying. It felt like he’d been doing so much of that lately he was practically numb to it. It was Jack, stepping around the corner with a quiet “Oh, bud.” That made him notice how wet his cheeks were. Jack didn’t say anything – he always knew when Bitty just need quiet despite his loud nature. Jack just held him, like he’d done so many times before in this kitchen. Deep down, he knew it would not be the last time they came here, but it was going to be the last time it was like this.

It was that bittersweet feeling you have when reaching the end of a really good book. You can’t wait to see what happens next, but God, turning that page ached in a way you can never fully identify.

But how… how can you say goodbye to a place that has given you so much? That has showed you who you are? So many times his degree had felt like the end of the road – the ultimate destination, that he forgot to slow down and really appreciate how he had gotten here. The all-nighters, and the haus parties, and the pies – so many pies – were all checkpoints along the way. How do you say goodbye to that?

It wasn’t until he was in the front seat of Jack’s car, making a lap around the giant round-about, with Jack mumbling about how he never fully understood the statues they’d dotted around for ‘culture’, that Bitty realized what he needed to say to this campus. It wasn’t goodbye. It was a small and resounding _thank you._ A thank you for what it had taught him, about life, about love, about himself. Samwell was hallowed ground that Bitty had been blessed enough to walk. 

He wasn’t sure how you can thank a place for that, but he sure did try.

**Author's Note:**

> re-reading i realized i totally inserted my own campus into that last paragraph with the big roundabout and the weird sculptures... if you know, you know... but yeah here's to us class of 2020, convocation or not, we fucking did it guys.


End file.
